A Blog for Collectors

The Star Wars Trading Card Books

If you spent your piggy bank money on Topps’ Star Wars trading cards when you were growing up, I have some great reading material to tell you about!

Published via Abrams’ ComicArts imprint, Star Wars: The Original Topps Trading Card Series is a multi-volume collection that gathers every card from all the vintage collections. There’s also a “sister” publication dealing with Topps’ Star Wars Galaxy trading card set from the early ’90s.

When I first heard about these, I presumed them to be no more than charming little coffee table books, loaded snappy however light on substance. WRONG. Each is loaded with all types of trivia bits, covering everything from the films themselves to tales regarding how the trading card collections were developed and also implemented.

Each book was an evident labor of love, yet I don’t want to underestimate their cumulative main draw: Big, attractive scans of every Star Wars trading card– and I suggest the fronts as well as the backs, with every feasible additional one from the card wrappers to the wax boxes, or even overviews of just how every one of those old “sticker-back posters” really looked when you gathered the collections.

A few of you might be thinking, “Well, they appear cool, yet I could locate pictures of the cards online.” Here’s the important things: Yes, you could find numerous fan-supplied scans of the cards, but they won’t be nearly as top quality, nor even from another location as arranged. These publications typically aren’t just “as great” as having all the original Star Wars trading card sets. You might make a pretty good disagreement that they’re even better.

The authors/curators left no stones unturned, so to claim that the books merely reprint the old Star Wars cards is actually stating too little. They certainly do that, naturally, yet there’s a genuine chronicler’s touch in play. There are numerous little tidbits that the daily fan would certainly never even think to request, as well as the very best praise I can pay the group is that they might’ve gotten away with doing a whole lot less.

Oh, and here’s a cool touch: Each of the books (yes, also the one for Star Wars Galaxy) includes a couple of real trading cards, nabbed and taped to the back cover. While appearing like the initial Topps cards, each book’s cards are both custom-made and also– to my understanding– exclusive.

Every book in the series starts with a robust commentary from Gary Gerani, the original editor of the Star Wars Topps series. There’s an old school trying to enlighten, right here. These guides not simply full of eye candy, however with a far better understanding and gratitude for what enters into making a trading card set.